


All Tied Up

by Gildedmuse



Series: Tied Up Tender [1]
Category: Rent (2005), Rent - Larson
Genre: Companion Piece, Gift Fic, Light Bondage, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: Roger knows it's going to be a bad day when he wakes up freezing with a hang over, no recollection of what he did last night, and handcuffed to a chair.





	All Tied Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyralisha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyralisha/gifts).



> [Originally posted to LJ in 2006.]

**All Tied Up**

 

"Oohfucfuh...Euuh...."

 

Roger is blind. Or, at least, he'd like to be. Then he wouldn't have to deal with the light. He groans and squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can. He's still just flittering into consciousness, not yet fully awake, but already he can tell that it's way too bright. He can feel the weak winter sun beating at his eyelids, trying to worm its way into his head and fry his brain.

 

After a few minutes of grumbling, Roger's eyes cautiously flutter part way open. He groans again, squinting while the light burns into his eyes and attacks his head, to set every one of his cells he hadn't killed last night on fire. Beating, beating, beating around in his skull. He can't remember having been in this much pain in a long time. Especially not one burns like this even in the chilly December air.

 

After he recovers a little from having his brain ripped apart, Roger shuts his eyes again. He tries to stretch out instead, but his shoulders won't move. The way he slept left a crook running through his neck so bad Roger wants to take a knife and carve it out. For a few moments, eyes closed and head pounding, Roger just sits there and takes in the pain. Throbbing in his head, down his neck, into his arms twisted behind his back. He wiggles a bit, only to prove that movement of any kind will just make it worse. The wooden chair is digging into his spine and left his ass feeling numb. He's pretty sure his fingers have frostbite, because he can't move them. He tries stretching out again, but metal links dig into his wrists and he can't get them to move.

 

That's what does it. The cold metal digs into his skin and through the pain Roger is jolted awake. Before his mind has even had time to clear, Roger's already struggling to get free and shouting, "Mark!"

 

He fidgets around in his seat, looking over his shoulders to see if the handcuffs are shaking loose. Turns out twisting his head like that isn't something his body is up to doing this morning. "Mark!"

 

There's a small grunt that draws Roger's attention to the floor. Curled up in front of him is Mark, sleeping like a puppy at its master's feet. He's even making all the right sounds, kicking and shivering in his sleep. He's wearing Roger's boxers and green pull over, and Roger can't remember why. He doesn't even care right now. Mark could have been wearing Mimi's leather skirt and it wouldn't have made a difference right then.

 

"Mark!" Roger makes to kick Mark with his right foot, but it just doesn't happen. He looks down, cursing when he sees another set of handcuffs (pink and fluffy and probably Maureen's) keeping his leg in place. His other foot is secured by Mark's scarf, wrapped around and tied to the chair. He wiggles a few times and the material gives enough that he can take a swing at Mark's stomach. "Mark, wake up!"

 

Mark groans and tries to snuggle against the ground, arms wrapping around his chest to fight off the cold of the loft. With a growl, Roger kicks just a little harder, and maybe if his head weren't in such pain he'd think better of it but hell, he is tied up to a chair and hurting. Might as well bring someone down with him. "Mark, you fucking prick, get the hell up!"

 

Roger has never been good with hangovers.

 

This time, Mark rolls away when Roger kicks at him. He looks up at Roger, squinting against the light and rubbing some of the sleep from his eyes. "Ro-" and a yawn. "-erswhat?"

 

Roger tries glaring at Mark, but the way the searing pain shoots through him, he thinks better of it. "What do you think?" He asks, kicking Mark in the side. Mark growls, cuffing at the foot and mostly missing as he feels around the floor for his glasses. Roger doesn't have time to wait for Mark to be able to see. He's tied to a chair with the worst hangover imaginable and the details of last night are sketchy at best. "I'm handcuffed to a fucking chair and-"

 

Mark perks up just a little. "You are?" he asks, crawling around Roger and behind the chair. He tugs at the handcuffs a few times without any results. Mark grabs the back of the chair and pulls himself up with little more than a slightly pained grunt, clearly not suffering half as much as Roger. "You are," he says, then has the nerve to smile down at Roger like this is funny.

 

Roger growls at him, trying to tear his hands out of the cuffs. All he manages to do is shake the chair and Mark's grin grows even brighter.

 

"Mark..." Roger whines, pulling at the handcuffs again, as if some how desperation alone will get him out of these. "Help."

 

Still smiling, Mark manages to nod without breaking into laughter. "Alright," he agrees, walking over to their small, broke down splintered coffee table. "Let me just find the key..."

 

Roger watches Mark look over the table for a while, pushing loose leafs of paper and dust flying to the floor. Roger starts to stretch his mind, trying to come up with any practical reason why he's tied to a chair. He remembers Mark coming home with some beers and other assorted bottles of alcohol. He remembers brooding over his guitar and glaring out the window at Mimi as she came home. After that his headache gets so bad he can't pull up any actual coherent thoughts.

 

"What the fuck am I doing?" Roger asks as Mark gives up looking on the top of the table and goes to his knees, sweeping the floor with his hand. "Tied to a chair."

 

"You told me to," Mark answers, sliding onto his belly so he can see under the couch. After a few seconds, he sighs and gets to his knees, shoving the couch back. Both boys wrinkle their noses at the mess, which includes a plate that is growing a colony of its own and enough dead cockroaches that Roger's still-pounding head can't even come up with any good analogies of what to use them all for. "You said 'If I try and go after her, tie me down'."

 

"And I went after her," Roger says, which makes sense, if he could just come up with some reasons why he would suggest he wanted to be handcuffed to a Goddamn chair. The drinking, he decides, it has to have been the drinking.

 

Roger has never been very good with keeping back dramatics when drunks.

 

Mark frowns, pulling the couch back in place. If the key is there, he doesn't really want to find it. "I don't remember." He plops down on the floor in front of Roger, looking up at him with slightly cocked eyebrows, trying to remember something. "I remember buying alcohol...."

 

"I remember drinking it," Roger moans, and if he has a free hand he would be massaging his head right now. Instead his blood cells are each still beating at his skull in their attempt to escape, he can't feel most of his lower body anymore, and his wrists are sore from all those times he yanked at the cuffs. "You find those keys yet?"

 

"What? Oh..." Mark stops looking up at Roger and goes back to looking over the floor for the lost key. Fuck, it better not be lost, Roger thinks. He is in enough pain, thanks to the alcohol, without this added discomfort of having his arms pulled behind him. "At least I'm out of film," Mark says as he crawls around the chair where Roger can't see him. "So I can't get this on camera."

 

Roger raises an eyebrow, trying to twist his head back. Oh, fuck, that hurts. He moans and turns away, deciding against that brilliant plan. He can't even massage his own damn neck. Roger is ready to tear off these fucking handcuffs just so he can get to some aspirin. "You want this on film?"

 

"I have enough film of you bitching," Mark answers, and Roger can't see him, but he can hear the playful teasing tone in his friend's voice.

 

Roger thought it couldn't have possible gotten any worse until the phone started to ring, the answering machine picking up with a sharp beep that makes both boys groan in pain. If that isn't bad enough, the next thing they hear is the high-pitched voice of Mrs. Cohen echoing through the loft and ripping away at Roger's already tender eardrums.

 

"Mark? Honey, are you there? It's your mother. You didn't call for Christmas and we're all worried about you."

 

"Oh, fuck," Mark says from the floor behind Roger. He can hear him either pound his fist into the floor or else drop his forehead down. Either way it makes a nice rattling noise through his over sensitive ears. "Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck..."

 

"You haven't called in a while," his mom reminds him over the sound of Mark's cursing. "Your dad is going up there for business next week, and I'm sending him to check on you, honey." Mark mutters a few more choice words, and Roger would be impressive he wasn't groaning out of pain at the moment. "Love you, Mark. Call."

 

Then there is silence. Silence, and Mark murmurs something under his breathe about overprotective Jewish mothers who still think he's thirteen. It's quiet enough that Roger can actually collect his thoughts for the first time since he woke up. Back to the drinking last night, Mark saying he needed to relax. Roger grumbling about some guy named David. David is so grown up. David is so understanding. He's a poet, and passionate and sweet. Who the fuck is David and why is Roger in love with him?

 

David is Mimi's new boyfriend, Roger remembers suddenly. David is the guy she started seeing after breaking up with Roger four months ago. After smiling at him and hugging him and saying, "I'm so sorry." Right after she said she loved him, that she'd always loved him, that this simply isn't what either of them wanted. That it simply wasn't working, and she needed someone new, but she will always be in love with him.

 

Fuck, now Roger really wants another drink.

 

"Dammit," Mark is growling, walking past Roger and to the phone where he deletes the last message, and the few before that, all from his mother. "I don't call for one holiday and she has to send Dad to come and check on me. This is because she caught me and Kyle smoking behind the JCC. She thinks every time I'm not checking in I'm doing drugs."

 

Christmas. This is the day after Christmas, which means that yesterday should have been their second year anniversary. They should still be in bed, cuddling, but instead Mimi smiled and rubbed her thumb against his hand and said she would love him, but this isn't right for either of them.

 

Which is why Mark came home early, even though he should have been filming. Which is why they had gotten drunk as hell and sang Christmas songs, and a few Hebrew ones that Mark half remembered, over the fire escape to an audience of annoyed homeless and drug addicts. Which is how Roger ended up handcuffed to a chair in the first place; when he had told Mark that he needed to be tied in place, to make sure he didn't go down there and beg for her forgiveness.

 

Roger has never been good with break-ups.

 

Mark sighs after he finishes clearing the machine. He turns to lean against the table, rubbing at his forehead like he does when he's talking to his mom or Maureen when she's drunk. "She won't be happy until I'm wearing a collar."

 

"As sexy as that is," Roger breaks in, wiggling the cuffs again. "I'm still handcuffed." He wants to get out of these, wants to go lock himself in his room for a few more days, which has worked well for him over the last month. Then Mark had to try and break the monotony by bringing in some beer and having a good time. Look how well that went.

 

Mark stops what he's doing and looks up. Actually looks at Roger, like he's studying a frame of film and can see everything. It makes Roger's headache that much worse. "We could talk about things."

 

"Like what?" Roger growls, turning on the defensive before Mark has a chance to say anything else. He knows what Mark is trying to do. What he did after April, after withdrawals. The same hero act. The way he tries to save Roger when Roger isn't even asking for help. "Like why I'm tied to a fucking chair and how you've managed to lose the key?"

 

"We already talked about that," Mark says, adjusting his glasses and glowering at Roger. They have been through this so many times and Mark has to be use to his stubborn asshole routine by now, just like Roger is ues to his friends pushing and prodding when all Roger wants to do is be alone and soak in his misery. "That subject's old. Let's talk about you." Mark is giving him that serious, set in stone look. Roger just snorts, yanking at the cuffs again. "Come on, Roger. What else are you going to do? Break the chair in half?"

 

Roger starts wiggling around enough to make a point that he will. He'd rather be trapped in these handcuffs all day than talk about himself. Mark doesn't look ready to back down yet. Roger might be stubborn, but Mark can obsess. Over work, over why Maureen left him, over Roger's whole damn life. Usually they're pretty well matched, and there will be yelling and blaming before Roger storms off to his room and Mark goes to film some homeless guy picking through the garbage. Only this time Mark is at an advantage. Roger can't run anywhere.

 

They both know it, and Mark takes his time to walk back and sit on the now cleared off coffee table, watching Roger and waiting for him to stop pulling at the handcuffs. "You're going to hurt your wrists." Roger doesn't listen, just keeps pulling at the links around his wrists, and they do dig in and hurt, but it doesn't hurt as much as having to face up with everything that he's been living with for the past month. "Roger, you have to stop this. It's not healthy."

 

Roger interrupts Mark's little feel good speech with a snort. "Yeah, because brooding around the loft is the biggest of my health problems." He tries to sound bitter, because that is what he wants. He wants to be cynical, hard to the world around him. Only he isn't fooling Mark, and he isn't fooling himself. No matter how hard he pretends, Roger still clings to this last hope. He can leave behind a song. He can fall in love. Roger wants to be as emotionless as Mark seems most of the time. He tried it before and couldn't make it. It seems like it would hurt less, though, to just cut yourself off at a moments notice like Mark can behind the safety of his camera.

 

Roger can shut himself in the loft, can run across the country, and it always still hurts.

 

Mark goes to his knees in front of the chair, looking up at Roger with fierce blue eyes. "Stop being like this," Mark says, somewhere between begging and demanding. "What's happened to the old you?"

 

"Could ask you the same," Roger mutters, still glaring at his lap. "Guess it doesn't count as selling out when the network is as sleazy as Buzzline, huh?"

 

It's meant to hurt, but Mark just keeps those strong blue eyes fixed on him. "That was a year ago, Roger. I quit before you even came back." Roger doesn't say anything, just lifts his gaze slightly to meet Mark's. He doesn't want to have another argument with his best friend. He just wants to crawl under his covers and wait until everything stops hurting. "I miss the old you. You know, the one that use to laugh and call me a dork and imitate my mother in that really bad voice that most Jewish women would slap you for using." There is a hint of a smile tugging at Mark's lips, and if Roger weren't in so much pain he might smile back. He just lowers his eyes, anger draining but that sickening feeling of loss still twisting in his gut. "You were like that with Mimi. Why can't you be like that with me?"

 

Mark gives him the saddest look, and Roger almost breaks for his best friend. "It's different," he says, turning away so he won't be caught by Mark's eyes. "It's...."

 

In the freezing December weather, Mark's lips are chapped and cold. They barely press against Roger's, just enough to get him to jerk up and his eyes go wide, staring into Mark's as they sit in this limbo of a kiss with Mark leaning forward into him and Roger not moving at all.

 

It's only for a flash of a second, and then Mark is pulling away and sitting back on his heels.

 

"How is it different?" Roger flounders for words. It's been a long time since Mark has kissed him. Back before withdrawal, before he was diseased; when falling into bed with his best friend had been no big deal. Before April and Maureen, when they got drunk and made out and woke up curled around each other and never thought it was anything but normal.

 

Scarier than the kiss, though, are the words that Roger understands are there, the ones he almost hears but that Mark could never say. How is it different, since I love you, too? Even Roger hears it, and Roger's never been good at catching those sorts of things.

 

Roger gives a weak pull at the handcuffs. At least then there is some noise in the air, filling the awkward silence. Eventually Mark smiles and laughs and no one could be fooled by that. "You're a fucking idiot when you're drunk," he says, looking around the floor, back to searching for the key.

 

"You're the one who listened to me," Roger says, trying to get from the mindset of Mark kissing him to the playful banter they've always had without his head spinning and falling off. "You should know better than to listen to drunken songwriter ramblings."

 

"Maybe I wanted to tie you up," Mark says without looking up at Roger, eyes still on the floor, still looking for a key. Fuck him, for joking like that after kissing him. How is Roger supposed to keep up with him? He's still hung over, for Christ sake.

 

"I doubt it," Roger says, and maybe Mark is already miles past the kiss and Roger just needs to catch up. "From what I remember, didn't you say Maureen was the one who got off on being in control?"

 

"Fuck you." Roger turns away just as a sock flies at his face. He looks back to Mark, maturely sticking out his tongue since he can't actually flip him off. Mark is smiling brightly at him, almost twisting his mouth into a scowl and failing. "Weren't you the one who let April fuck you with a vibrator?"

 

"That shit feels good," Roger says, trying to kick at Mark but he's over near his cuffed foot, so all he can do is rattle the chair menacingly. "Don't knock it if you haven't tried it."

 

"Oh," Mark says, and his eyes light up with that same dangerous gleam right he'd had before he jumped on the table at the Life Café, or that time a few months ago he stuck his tongue down Benny's throat when he came and visited with his wife. Roger loves that look, because it always means trouble. "I have."

 

Having the final say in that short battle, Mark turns walks over to the table and starts looking through the assortment of junk they keep up there for the key, so he never gets to see the way Roger's eyes go wide. Fuck, this is wildly unfair. To kiss Roger and bring back all those memories of times when it was just him and Mark and a city of possibilities. Then to force him to imagine Mark naked and flushed and with his glasses askew, his eyes shut and lips parted as he moans. On his hands and knees like he is now, and how fair is it that when he bends over the boxers hug his body?

 

Roger looks back up at the skylight. He wants to be blind again, this time so that thoughts of Mark in bed or tied up or anyway his mind can get him stop parading through into his head. He wants to be blind, or at least have something other than Mark's ass to stare at. He shouldn't be thinking of Mark like that. He hasn't thought of him as anything other than a friend in ages. Not since Mark pushed him back that one time, saying, "I can't. I've got a girlfriend."

 

Back then it hadn't changed anything. They'd still be the same Mark and Roger, just more platonic. Hugs hadn't lead to wandering hands like they did before Maureen. After that, the only thing different was that crass jokes no longer gave Roger permission to grope and when Mark had a few beers he didn't fall right into Roger's lap. Mark was in a Serious Relationship and Roger was quickly entering one of his own, and they no longer had to mess around like they used to.

 

Now, though, Roger can't have those thoughts because he can't even act on them. Not like he could when they were younger, and Collins would preach about fluid sexuality and it was easy to go between sex and friendship. Back then it never had to mean anything and at the time that had been exactly what they both needed.

 

"Ah-ha!" Mark shouts, jerking Roger out of his prayer to the sun to blind him and possibly remove whatever part of his brain thinks it's okay to imagine Mark being slammed into the mattress. Mark, clothed and not flushed by anything except the cold, holds up a small key in his hands as he crawls back over to Roger. "Found it."

 

"Thank God," Roger says, rolling his shoulders back as Mark pulls out the chain. "I really have to piss." Normal, nonsexual talk. That's what Roger really needs right now.

 

"If you go in your pants, I'm not coming anywhere near you, Davis," Mark says. Roger can hear metal scrapping metal, the sound of Mark freeing him at last. "You can just sit in this chair and rot."

 

"Asshole," Roger says back, already trying to pull his hands free. He's going to leap out of this chair and run to the bathroom and swallow four or five aspirin and then take a cold shower and see how his hormones like that.

 

Roger's wrists aren't being freed, though, and after a second Mark makes a sound that isn't so good. "That's weird," he says as he crawls around the chair. "Maybe it's for the one on your foot." Roger groans. What is having a free foot going to help him with, damnit? As Mark twists and turns the key in the lock, he realizes he isn't even going to get that much. Frowning, Mark lifts the key up to his glasses, turning it over a few times. "Hm... Wonder what it's for."

 

"Collins secret girl on girl porn stash that he keeps along side his complete works of Pat Robertson. Who the fuck cares, Mark?" Roger is not in a good mood. He's handcuffed to a chair having less than innocent (okay, fine, pornographic) thoughts about his best friend. Lust, hurt, confusion, and hangover are not things that mix well. Especially not in a songwriter whose emotions have always been unstable. "I'm still tied to a fucking chair."

 

"And still complaining about it," Mark says, back on his hands and knees and scouring the floor for the keys. "Not like you've never been tied up before, Roger."

 

On impulse and out of habit, Roger says, "Well, usually there is sex."

 

The second it's out of his mouth, he's beating himself up for it. He really shouldn't be playing along with Mark, but come on. This is how they've always talked, and it's never been anything weird before. Before, Roger hadn't been sick, and messing around had been okay. Now, Mark turns his head back, flashing Roger a smile.

 

"You could just ask."

 

"I like more curves, thank you." Right now it looks like Mark has all the curves Roger could need. Shit, he needs to stop staring.

 

"That's not what you said before," Mark says, his quest to finding the keys still continuing like none of this is even happening. "You said you'd sleep with Kurt Cobain, and he doesn't have any 'curves'."

 

It rings like something from one of their conversations they sometimes have when high, sprawled out on tables, couches, roofs, or beds and passing a joint around. Someone would ask something like, "Who would win if..." or "Which would you sleep with..." Something stupid and somehow funny at the time that they would laugh about and answer, or maybe not. Just something to distract for a moment that they were starving, freezing, broke, diseased, alone, addicted, or one of the hundred other things they didn't want to think about. Somewhere in a hazy memory Roger can imagine a younger Mark, with his head on his lap and smoke curling up from his lips asking, "Which filmmaker would you sleep with?"

 

And a younger Roger in cleaner make-up and no worry lines around his eyes snatches the joint back and said, "That's stupid. Which rock star would you sleep with?"

 

"I didn't say that," Roger says, frowning down at Mark who has, thankfully and unfortunately, turned so that Roger is looking at his messy blonde hair. "You said you'd sleep with Cobain, because he reminded you of me. I said I'd sleep with Greg Sage, because I have taste."

 

Mark looks up only so he can roll his eyes. "He still isn't a chick," he says simply, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his noise. "Whatever happen to being a being a self-proclaimed sex god?"

 

"That wasn't self-proclaimed!" Roger says, playfully insulted and smiling now, because he has Mark laughing and rolling his eyes, and what could be better than making Mark smile like that? Besides, this doesn't ring like the sort of serious conversation Roger is so adverse to having at the moment, so how could it be bad? "I had lots of people to back me up on that one."

 

"I know," Mark says, another one of those dangerous gleams in his too-blue eyes. Then he's back to work, obsessively looking for that key. "Do you remember what we might have done with it?"

 

"I don't know. You drank less than me," Roger points out, twisting his head around and scanning the floor, glad to have this distraction even if it means he's still locked in place. "Can't you remember? I'm in pain, not to mention freezing my ass off since you're in my nice warm pullover."

 

Sighing, Mark pushes himself to his feet, holding the pullover tighter around himself. "Stop being a baby. Anyway, I remember you called me Markie three times last night while mocking my mother, which is uncool," Mark says with a halfhearted glare in Roger's direction. "And singing Christmas songs from the fire escape."

 

"I remember that part," Roger says, if nothing else than to prove the alcohol hasn't made him a total idiot. Well, maybe it had, but at least he remembers bits and pieces of being a total idiot. "I remember doing an impression of Collins, too..."

 

"It didn't go very well," Mark says as he grabs a blanket, draping it around Roger's shoulders. As if needing Mark to do that isn't bad enough, he gives Roger a cheeky smile and ruffles his hair as he walks away. Roger just glowers at his back, a small snarl being pulled from the back of his throat. "And I am not Collins' bitch."

 

Mark turns to glare at Roger, who can't help but laugh and wishes he remembered why he said that. Mark's answer to the laughing is to flip him off. There isn't any real anger there, though, and he never really stops smiling at Roger. "You remember anything else?"

 

Roger closes his eyes, trying to concentrate. Where would Mark have put the damn key. He remembers throwing bottles at the trashcan, trying to make goals. He remembers teasing Mark about a Maureen. He remembers Mark wiggling around on the couch under Roger, already dressed in his green pullover.

 

He remembers Mark's lips being hot against his. He remembers biting at Mark's ear, ignoring gentle shoves and telling him it was okay, just relax. He remembers the way Mark smiles, flushed and drunk and giggling. He remembers saying, "I love her," and Mark nodding. He remembers saying, "I love you," and getting that smile again.

 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Roger can picture himself saying, "You might have to tie me up to keep me from going back to her."

 

He can clearly remember Mark's brilliant smile, the way his face lights up and he looks so fucking young compared to the sober Mark he knows. "I would love to tie you up."

 

Roger swallows hard around the lump in his throat. He looks up to see Mark still searching the floor for signs of the keys. At least now he knows why Mark's been so flirty today. Roger hadn't exactly been innocent last night. "Mark..." He says the name slowly, cautiously as if he's unsure he's even allowed to say it. Mark's head pops up, and he cocks it to the side obviously hearing the nervous tone of Roger's voice. "Come here."

 

Obediently, Mark cross the room and sits down at Roger's feet, looking up at him and waiting. Roger, he has to take a deep breath. This is probably one of those things he should instinctively know not to talk about.

 

Roger has never been good at following unspoken rules like that.

 

"About..." He's not stuttering, he just can't seem to get the words to form properly in his brain. "I want you to..."

 

"I know," Mark says, shrugging it off so casually that Roger is sure Mark must have no idea what he's talking about. Only then he says, "I know you don't want to get me sick. I know you still love Mimi. I know you're worried that I just can't stand to see you like this. I already know."

 

Roger has to look shocked as hell, because Mark just shrugs again and keeps talking. "I also know that when you were thirteen, you slept with a teddy bear in a leather jacket your dad sent you, because he forgot and thought you were still seven, and you didn't care. I know the first time you sang in front of an audience it was for your sixth grade choir concert and you got a hard on."

 

Roger looks down at his lap, blushing just a little. All thing he told Mark while he was drunk, and he's not even sure why he'd let them slip out, only that when Mark started feeling bad about his life Roger would tell him those sort of stories to get him smiling or at least feeling like he wasn't alone.

 

Mark doesn't stop, even when Roger stops looking at him. "I know after your first gig you had to throw up in the bathroom, you were so nervous, and that the only reason you know Collins is because you wound up drunk and passed out on the stairs of the building. I knew you a year before April, and I knew you when you loved her and when you got addicted, when you got sick and went through withdrawal." He moves slightly, just enough that he's forcing Roger's averted eyes to look into his. "And through some miracle, and because I'm flat broke, I'm still here."

 

Roger smiles the best he can. "Mostly the money, huh?"

 

Grinning, Mark cuffs him lightly outside the arm. "That and living with an ex-sex god is kind of amusing."

 

"Hey!" Roger snaps, smiling just as brightly back at Mark. "There is nothing ex about it."

 

Mark is back to flirty, mischievous smile and all, as his hands go from Roger's knees slowly upward. "I should check."

 

"I don't know," Roger says, watching long fingers bunch into the waistline of his pants. "It's been a while since Maureen. You're probably to out of practice for me."

 

Without a word in his own defense, Mark leans forward, licking Roger through the plaid material of his pants and - fuck - that would be why he didn't need words. Roger's head falls back and he's moaning, trying to arch against Mark's hot mouth as it closes around the crotch of his pants. "Careful," he whispers, wanting to pull back and push forward at the same time; being tied to a chair, he really can't manage either.

 

"I know," Mark says, pulling back just enough that his breath is hot against the wet plaid. "You have to trust me, Rog, I'm not a kid. I already know all the shit you've done, and I'm going to be careful."

 

"But..." Roger looks down to meet Mark's serious face. He isn't going to give up on Roger, just like he never has. Sometimes Roger hates him for that. Right now, hate isn't exactly the term he'd use. "You're going to stay."

 

Smiling, Mark shrugs and slowly pulls back from Roger. "It's either this or home with my parents." Mark shivers just at the thought, and even though Roger smiles, he wonders if that's true. Is this some kind of default? No Maureen and no Mimi, so they just kind of end up together? Mark is still smiling up at him, though, and Roger's poetic side wants to think this is how it is supposed to be. "Amazingly enough," Mark says as if he's sensing some of Roger's worry, "People can love you without accidentally stumbling back stage or bursting in here with a candle. People that know you can actually love you anyway."

 

"Nah," Roger says, shaking his head a bit. "You're just sex-crazed and desperate."

 

"Probably," Mark says, leaning back and fishing through one of the pockets of the pullover. With a hint of a smirk, he holds up a silver key to Roger's face. "Ready to be untied?"

 

Roger's in way too much shock to properly voice how much he's going to kill Mark. Mark, who just smiles and undoes his hands and leg, taking the cuffs and the key and tossing them back on the table. He squats in front of the chair, grinning at Roger in a way that makes him want to tie Mark to a chair and see how he likes it.

 

There are two clicks as both pairs of handcuffs fall to the floor. "You're free to move now."

 

"I'm going to kill you." Roger is out of the seat in a second, wincing at the ache from moving so fast after being in the same position all damn night. He ignores the pain so he can tackle Mark into the table, bodies colliding and fists flailing in playfully, mostly painless punches. Then Mark's mouth is back on his, just was hot as he remembers it and opening under his force, and Mark's legs are wrapped around his waist and Roger is right there, pressing into him and moaning into his best friend's mouth.

 

Roger has never been good at curbing those hormones. Right after he's done rubbing up against Mark; right after that, he's going to beat the shit out of him for the trick he just pulled.

 

Yeah, right after Mark stops nipping at his jaw and licking at his ear and Roger gets sick of running his hands under the pullover, nails scrapping gently down Mark's chest, then he's going to get him back for that. For now, he's more concerned with helping Mark up onto the table, leaning over him and trying to kiss him as many times as he can, as if at any moment, he'll be cuffed back to the chair and unable to get to him.

 

Mark's hands touch his stomach, and it's a shock of heat against the background of cold air. Roger pulls away quickly, the warm buzzing through his body like a tripped alarm. If Mark does that again, it's going to lead somewhere Roger is afraid of. "You know-"

 

Mark's fingers dig into his shirt, pulling him closer. "I know."

 

These kisses aren't like the ones from long ago that tasted of alcohol or pot and were driven by simple lust and need. Lips are chapped now, not smooth, hands more torn up from years of experience as they push at clothes and run across skin. Roger's knees dig into the table as he pins Mark against the cold surface and, God, he's missed having Mark this close.

 

It's about trying to touch each other as much as possible. Hands slide along his stomach, ripping and tugging at his clothes until they're gone. Mark's mouth is around his ear, hot breath sprawling out over Roger's skin and, fuck, Mark's hand is around him, giving himself to grind down against. Contact that sends a wave of heat through his body, melting away the chill and the rest of the world. Roger scrapes his nails down Mark's chest, needing to hear him moan again. It's been a long time since he made Mark moan like that and he wonders now how he never became addicted.

 

Roger slides his hand down into Mark's blue boxers. Like teenagers groping, feeling and pushing and thrusting against one another. Mark's head falls back against the table as he arches his hips, rubbing up into Roger's hand. Roger is trying to remember everything at once, like how if he turns his hand and rubs his thumb there, yes, he can get Mark to whimper and grab for Roger's shoulder to keep himself steady.

 

Mark tangles his legs around Roger's waist, their hands bumping up against one another as they knead and squeeze one another. Roger's suddenly younger, smirking at the power he has over his best friend, feeling Mark through the thin fabric and earning small whimpers - Please, Roger, more - and groaning - Yes, God, Mark - every time they move against one another.

 

The way Mark looks as he twists around on the table, flushed and with wet, trembling lips, gasping and moaning and rolling back into Roger's hand, it's amazing. Roger has forgotten how it looks when Mark loses himself, and there is nothing holding him back except for Roger's weight pinning him against the cold, metal table. Mark's hand, warm and callused and, God, knows just what to do so that Roger ends up trembling and grinding up against him.

 

He actually growls as he jumps off the table, but letting go of Mark is worth it so long as he gets to tear his boxers off. Mark props himself up, shooting Roger a desperate look, pleading with Roger not to stop. The way Roger's body is aching, he doubt he could anymore.

 

He pops two of his fingers into his mouth, pushing Mark's legs apart until his ankles go over the side of the table. Mark is chanting his name, pulling at his hair until he has Roger bent over the table. It digs in his stomach - painful, sharp, please don't stop - but Mark won't let go.

 

He gets what he wants, Roger's wet fingers pressing up against him and his dark voice, a low growl. "Relax," Roger tells him. Mark sighs, soft like the skin Roger is sliding his hand over. All he has to do is rub up against Mark and he pushes back for more, God, they need so much more.

 

"Fuck," Mark cries sharply, hand twisting into Roger's hair, pulling him closer. Until he's nuzzling up against Mark's stomach and they need to be closer, still. Roger's lips close around the head of his cock, tongue running against Mark. Another sharp cry and Mark twists back into his fingers, tugging at Roger's hair, pushing him down. Roger goes willingly. Ignoring the table that is digging into him, because God, Mark is tight around his fingers and willingly pressing down for more, or the way his eyes tear up as Mark thrusts back into his throat so long as he keeps crying out for Roger.

 

Mark whimpers, nails digging into Roger's bleached out hair, crying out as he pushes back into the fingers, up into Roger's mouth. "God, yes," Mark moans and it's intoxicating to the senses. Like the sharp, bitter taste of Mark on his tongue. "Fuck, Roger."

 

Roger jerks back roughly, leaving Mark whimpering and whining and empty. Leaving him panting and reaching for Roger. They just need to be touching, to have that contact. Roger is rushing, body screaming for more, as he pulls Mark down and then it's Mark bent over the table, stomach slamming up into the side with a cry, grabbing onto the side as his legs slip apart. Roger reaches around him, pulling a condom out of the pocket off the pullover.

 

Mark's laugh is hoarse, breathless. "You can't find the key but you know right where to look for the condoms?"

 

Smirking, Roger leans forward and bites at Mark's ear as he rolls the latex on. Cold and wet around him, the opposite of Mark whose pale skin has flushed with heat; who is rubbing up against him, rocking back against his cock and moaning. "Don't stop," he commands, as if Roger even had a choice when Mark is pushing back against him.

 

Then Mark is biting on his lip, fingers scratching down the table as he tries to hold himself up as Roger pushes up into him. Roger nuzzles into his shoulder, moaning and shaking with the effort not to slam up into Mark even with Mark making those small noises, struggling to push back against him. He strokes down Mark's sides, trying to get him to relax, trying to get him not to hurt. Mark grinds his teeth together until Roger is inside him and it's - Fuck - tight and hot and Roger is panting into Mark's skin.

 

"Roger," Mark growls through clenched teeth. "Roger, just fucking move."

 

Grabbing Mark's hips, Roger pushes him down against the table, pulling back enough that he can thrust back into him. Rough cries break the cold, silent air. Heavy panting and grunts and More, Yes, Fuck, Roger, God, Mark, Yes. Hard and rough, like the sound of the table scrapping across the floor as Mark is slammed down onto it. Roger rocks back against him, twisting and moving their bodies together until he hears Mark screaming his name, feet sliding down the floor as he tries to arch back. Roger's rough hand close around his cock, squeezing hard enough that Mark screams again, tensing around him as he thrusts up into Roger's hand.

 

Roger loses himself to the messy rhythm until Mark twists back against him, choking on his name and coming hard. He shakes in Roger's hands, still pushing back weakly as he whimpers, moaning softly against the table. Roger never stops rocking into him until the coiled heat in his gut snaps, and, with a few shallow thrusts, he is screaming into Mark's skin, teeth digging into his shoulder.

 

With a long sigh, Roger pulls away from Mark, dropping to the floor behind him. He wraps his arms loosely around Mark's legs, nuzzling against his thighs as he catches his breath. The heat is still radiating off Mark's pale skin, better than any amount of blankets when it comes to keeping away the winter air. Mark wiggles around, turning around on the table and forcing Roger to let go of him as he does.

 

Mark smiles, bruises and bite marks standing out where the pull over has been bunched up around his stomach or yanked down his shoulder. "You look like hell," Roger says, reaching up and running a hand against the bruise across Mark's stomach, where he had been bent over the table. What he really means is that Mark looks beautiful, but that isn't the sort of thing you tell your best friend.

 

  * Mark flinches slightly, running a hand down to tangle their fingers together. He cocks his head slightly, smiling down at Roger. "Next time you can tie me up," he promises. "It's not like I'm going anywhere, anyway."




End file.
